Meet the kids
by J.Dax
Summary: Two exasperated visitors arrive through the Stargate and explain to their parents Daniel, Jack, Sam, and Teal'c Who they are and what made them accidently dial back in time. Not like other offspring stories, I think you all might enjoy it.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Just a little idea that's been running around my brain.

Disclaimer: Don't own Stargate, but I have grey and blue paint so I can pretend I do.

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"Dial us out, NOW!" the young Major shouted, running backwards towards the gate and holding a zat gun in front of him.

The doctor paused in her rapid pressing of the panels on the DHD and glanced over her shoulder, giving a silent curse as she noted that the as yet unidentified but obviously pissed off alien was gaining on her friend.

"We're dialing too early!" she cried, turning back to her task, "We're going to get caught in the rift!"

The Major spared a look in her direction after he came to a halt a yard behind her, covering their six as she hesitated, her hand resting over the point of origin.

"It's better than being caught by this ugly son-of-a-bitch!" he cried.

She acknowledge his comment and activated the wormhole, punching in their Iris code and praying that her teammate's calculations we're off by just a fraction so they could avoid the time dilation effects that the rift would cause.

She had little hope of that, Jacob was never wrong about these things.

They dove through the gate.

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"Unauthorized activation" Walter Davis' familiar voice bounced around the control room unnoticed by his coworkers.

Incidents such as this had become such a common event over the past nine years that no one took a very huge interest in them anymore.

Walter repeated the necessary lines of information that followed his initial announcement to General O'Neill presently standing behind him.

"Incoming traveler, receiving IDC"

The code registered on the computers but something was amiss. Walter frowned and keyed a few commands into the gate computer before turning in his seat to face the General.

"Sir, the computer says this code belongs to SG-9 but they returned from their mission on PR5-F72 three hours ago" his tone was one of concern.

Walter knew what happened when days at the SGC began with more unusual then the usually unusual occurrences; first they got a strange arrival, next someone got hurt, after that something got blown up, then a select group of people (normally SG-1) would either start disappearing or exhibiting rakish forms of behavior, and later a snooty politician arrived demanding to know what the hell was going on and why it had almost caused global destruction.

Jack sighed as if he had been through this before and remembered that he hadn't enjoyed it the first time around.

"Let's open the Iris for kicks, shall we?" the General said, tossing on a mellow smile to go with his spice of sarcasm.

"Yes, Sir" Walter said, adding his own little sigh, because he _knew _he'd been through this before, and he had certainly not enjoyed it the first time…in fact he had found the scenario rather painful.

The Iris yawned apart from the gate just in time for two figures to stumble through.

The security personnel were immediately ready with weapons hoisted into position and protective shields in place.

The two figures glanced at each other, exchanging frustrated expressions, and raised their hands, one of them dropping a zat down the ramp in the process.

Jack entered the gate room to inspect their guests.

A man wearing standard BDUs with the rank of Major pinned to them. He had thick, light brown hair cut close to his scalp in military fashion and blue eyes that were sharp and keen.

There was something extremely familiar about him but Jack couldn't pinpoint it.

The woman standing next to him had chin length hair of almost the same color but it was a much darker shade and could have been mistaken for brunette in the right lighting. Her eyes were also blue but less piercing and harbored an undertone of white flecks, and she wore gold-rimmed glasses that blended perfectly into her face. She also wore BDUs but there was nothing on her uniform to indicate her rank.

Again, someone who looked very familiar…

"Hey, Kids" Jack greeted cheerfully, "I don't believe we've met so how about exchanging names before I send you off to be mercilessly interrogated?"

The man dragged his eyes down from where they had rolled upwards and glued themselves to the ceiling when Jack had entered the room.

"This is _so _not a good day," the man murmured to himself but loud enough for the woman next to him and Jack to hear.

"Is that…?" the woman questioned, scrutinizing Jack.

"Oh yeah" the man replied.

"Then we're…?"

"Yup"

"And mine is…?"

"Still alive"

"Oh" was how she finished their fractured conversation, looking nonchalant and undisturbed at the mess they had just walked into.

Jack glanced between the two of them for a moment, "So…you guys have names…explanations…anything along those lines?"

The man smirked, "I'm Luke Skywalker, this is Han Solo, and you're Darth Vader"

Jack blinked, trying to register the joke that had been delivered in the form of his signature brand of humor.

The man glanced at his companion with a quirky smile, "The Darth Vader line, seriously?"

"Clever" she replied monotonously.

He nodded, "I thought so"

"Okay, if you don't want to tell me who you are-" Jack began.

"My name is Dr. Amanda Jackson" the girl finally revealed, "Skywalker here…" she motioned towards her friend, "Is Jacob O'Neill"

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After going through a standard pat down, thorough physical exam, and final threat assessment, Jacob and Amanda were brought to the briefing room and stared at for a long period of time by SG-1 and General O'Neill.

Daniel was the first to break the silence, "So, Jackson as in…?" he questioned, raising his eyebrows.

Amanda seemed startled by him, she hadn't stopped staring at Daniel in utter shock since he'd entered the room, and she was not able to answer the question he posed now.

Jacob glanced at her wearily, then replied on her behalf, "As in your daughter" he said.

Their was a collective reaction of appall cut a different turn of expression from each individual in the room: Teal'c raised an eyebrow, Sam sucked in a breath and glanced at Daniel, Jack leaned back in his chair and got an expression on his face that clearly stated he was vacant about the whole issue, and Daniel scrunched his forehead and starred at his apparent prodigy.

"And O'Neill as in…?"

To this Jacob smiled coyly and shifted his eyes from Jack to Sam until he had them looking at each other nervously.

"As in Dad-I mean, Jack and Samantha's boy"

Carter quickly broke eye contact with her CO and looked at Jacob with a renewed perspective.

Jack seemed to finally realize where he was and what he was doing and faced the two people seated across from them all.

"You've gotta be like, what? Twenty-five?" the General asked.

"Listen" Jacob said, leaning forward, "I can't tell you that much about your futures because it might screw up the timeline…hell, just us being here has probably screwed it up enough, but I can give you a preliminary outline of what happened and why."

"He talks like you" Jack commented to Sam in a sidelong manner.

"He jokes like you" Sam answered back, still trying to wrap her super nova sized brain around the possibility that she could be sitting here talking to the future son of her and her CO.

"Right…" Jacob muttered languidly, "Anyway, Cassandra authorized-"

"Cassandra?" Sam interrupted, "Cassandra Frasier?" she asked incredulously. The three parents stared at them.

Amanda seemed to have snapped herself back to reality because she closed her eyes and leaned her head on her hand in exasperation, "Yes, Civilian Administrator Cassandra Frasier, who is head of the SGC in our time, authorized Jacob and I to gate to this new planet to collect some artifacts from an Ancient outpost our SG exploratory team discovered there"

"We would have brought Lif'kel along, but he was on Keb visiting his mother Ishta-" Jacob was interrupted again.

"Lif'kel?" Tea'c inquired calmly.

"Yes, he's your son Teal'c…Yours and Ishta's" Amanda explained, trying to be patient, "Together, Lif'kel, Jacob, and I are SG-1"

There was another collective response of surprise.

"Anyway, we had trouble dialing the planet at first, so I ran a diagnostic but the gate system was fine. I actually had a hunch about the problem ever since our exp. team had gone there the first time. You see, the address came from the list of worlds on the Ancient database that you, dad, downloaded into our computers, and it was pretty far out of our own galaxy, the furthest we'd ever attempted to gate to.

"I reviewed some data from the UAV about the cosmological situation surrounding the planet-"

"You used the UAV to scan outside the planet's atmosphere?" Carter said in an impressed tone, "How did you manage to rig it to perform that operation"

Jacob seemed pleased at her acknowledgement, "Oh, well all I had to do was take apart the-"

"Jacob" Amanda said, "I'd love to hear you prove once again how brilliant you are with techno stuff, but we don't have a whole lot of time here" she tapped her watched pointedly.

"Right" Jacob said, "So I reviewed the data and found that due to the extreme distance and the fact that the planet's orbit was at least five hours more rapid than ours in completing it's rotations around it's sun, there was a slight time delay in our being able to establish a lock. The reason it worked the first time without a hitch is because we got lucky and dialed out during the planet's morning hours where it's aligned just within the reach of our compensation program.

"After realizing this we were able to establish another successful wormhole but we had to use caution about our mission time frame because further apart planets are, the bigger the difference in light years. Normally the gate would compensate for this but the earth gate has no companion DHD and therefore it does not have all the same natural functions as other gates do. We've been able to make up for lot of that by creating our own bypass programs and such but it's like-"

"Working with a computer that doesn't have a monitor" Carter interjected.

Jacob nodded, "Yes. It's capable of performing the same functions but not unless it's operators have a basic visual and tactical guide to give it the proper commands. Our computer programs so far have only been able to compensate for the stellar drift and distance of the addresses on the Abydonian cartouche because that's all we initially planned and calculated for. We still haven't finished wading through all the Ancient addresses that are sitting on our hard-drives"

Jack was rubbing his forehead vigorously, "Is _anyone _besides me completely lost here?" he grumbled.

The other men in the room also seemed to have blanked out.

"What Jacob's trying to say here" Amanda said, taking over the explaining process, "in his oh so lengthy and detailed way is that the distance between earth and the planet was slightly further then we have yet to prepare our gate system for. Somehow that distance causes a periodic time rift so that when you dial out from that planet's gate, the further away from the world you're dialing to, the further back in time you'll be sent when you arrive at your destination."

"So it's like…solar flares?" Jack asked.

"Not exactly-"

Amanda placed a hand over Jacob's mouth to stave off another scientifically correct information barrage.

"Yes, kind of" she said in a compromising manner, "Jacob thought we could dial back at the proper time before a rift was created, but we were attacked by some unknown alien while gathering artifacts from the thought to be abandoned outpost. We had to dial out sooner than we expected and ended up here"

"That still doesn't explain how you have SG-9's current IDC…If you're from the future SGC it would be a security risk to use old codes" Daniel said.

"When Cassie was elected commander of the SGC, Mrs. O'Neill…I mean, Sam told her about the time the former SG-1 was sent back in time and about the different scenarios that could create opportunities for time travel when coming and going through the gate. As a precaution, she had some of our technologists install recall devices in our GDOs. It connects to earth's computer and the last logged IDC, records it, then sends it back to our GDO so we can emulate it in case of emergencies."

"Isn't that a little risky?" Daniel asked.

Amanda shrugged, "The recall technology is exclusive to earth and you have to have a special code to activate it so even if it did fall into enemy hands, they'd still need to know our codes first hand. I activated the recall because I knew we were running early and I didn't want to risk us splattering against an Iris"

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	2. So who's the mother?

"So, what do you think?" Jack said turning away from the monitor that was situated in his office and tuned in to the camera in the guest quarters that harbored their two future children. A fact none of them were willing to accept.

"If it is a lie, it's a fairly elaborate one" Sam commented.

"I asked Doctor Linden to match their blood samples to the DNA of all base personnel" Daniel said contemplatively, leaning against the corner of Jack's desk and watching the screen, "She said it would be an hour before we know"

"Teal'c?" Jack asked, glancing at his constantly silent friend who seemed to have a particular conversational disposition that morning.

"I do not believe they are lying" was all the man offered.

Jack sighed, "They didn't say what year they were from"

"They're risking their futures even telling us as much as they did" Carter said, "If they had let a particular date or event slip about our lives and we decided we wanted it to turn out differently, we might choose another path to take and mess up our futures or their existence"

There was a long pause in conversation as the group observed the two people on the screen.

"I want food" Jack said, and got up to leave.

"Me too" Sam commented and followed him.

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In the commissary Jack picked at the lunch on his plate despairingly, one arm propped up on the tabletop supporting his head.

Sam was seated across from him in much the same manner.

"So…" Jack broke the ten-minute silence that had settled between them.

"So" Sam replied, dropping her fork onto an untouched salad and straightening to look at him.

"You think it's possible…that we…you know"

"That depends on a lot of things. All we can do is try not to think to hard about the decisions we make from now on in case we base our choices on this incident in hopes that it may or may not turn out the way we'd like it to"

"I don't know" Jack said, pushing around some French fries on his plate and looking adorable in the endearing way that only he could pull off, "I'd kind of like to have a kid…and be married…to you"

Sam was glad she had nothing in her mouth to choke on, "Sir…" she warned, glancing around at the other personnel in the vicinity.

"They can't court martial us for our words, Carter, just our actions" he said.

When she didn't reply he glanced up worriedly, "Right?" he wasn't as up to date on regulations as she was, and he didn't want them both to lose their jobs because he'd once again stuck his foot in his mouth.

"Maybe" was her cryptic response after she'd let him sweat a little.

Then she smiled at him and leaned forward, pushing her plate out of the way and folding her arms on the table to create a resting place for her head, "I'd kind of like to have a kid too, and be married…to the man I love" she said lightly.

Jack stared at her for a long period of time with a soft gaze, then mirrored her pose, "And who do you love, Carter?"

Her smile widened but she didn't reply, just stood up and touched his hand as she walked by him and out of the commissary.

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Daniel walked with Teal'c down to the guest quarters where the door had been left slightly ajar so the guards posted on either side of it could hear any suspicious incidents occurring through the sound proof room.

"Are you alright, Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c inquired, noting his friend's hesitation at the door.

"Oh…" Daniel said, coming out of his deep train of thought and glancing at the Jaffa, "Yeah, I'm, uh, fine…it's just a lot to take in"

"Indeed"

They stood there for a few moments longer, contemplating the younger people inside the room.

Daniel was still working out the conversation he wanted to have with his alleged daughter and wasn't quite ready to enter the place they were being held and talk to her.

But he did want to observe her.

He did his best thinking when he was observing people or places, or the occasional artifact. So he subtly pulled the door open further, trying not to disturb the people on the other side of it, and poked his head in with Teal'c's.

Amanda was sitting at a small round table off to the corner of the room hunched over a book, and Jacob was laying with his head on the foot-end of one of the beds tossing a tennis ball off the board and catching it in his hands repeatedly.

After a while the young Major sat up, "I'm bored" he moped.

"Oh, I'm sure you can find something to play with…or at least break for entertainment" Amanda muttered detachedly as she turned another page in her book.

Jacob glanced around the quarters, "Nothing, not even a lamp" he grumbled, glaring accusingly at the overhead lighting that seemed determined to stay attached to a spot on the ceiling just out of his reach where he couldn't get in order to take it apart for something to do.

Just then Amanda sneezed fiercely, and because one of her hands was tucked under the cover of her reading materiel, she accidentally slammed the book closed.

Jacob shook his head in mock exasperation, as if to say she was hopeless.

He walked over to her and dug out a bottle of medication from his pocket along with a tissue packet, "Geek" he said while handing her the items.

"Furling" she replied sharply.

"We don't even know what those are"

"My father told me never to cuss in a foreign language"

"At least one of us remembered you're allergic to practically everything under the sun"

"Well aren't I lucky that not every planet has a sun then" she sneezed again while trying to open the plastic bottle of medication.

"Oh for crying out loud" Jacob sighed and took the bottle from her, retrieving the dosage himself.

"I would thank you, but you called me a Geek" she mumbled, swallowing the pills.

"I remembered to bring your anti-histamines, tell me you remembered to bring along a nifty artifact that I can play with. Preferably a shiny one"

Amanda reached into her jacket and retrieved a polished metal cube with two buttons on the side, "I swiped one of your techno toys before we left" she said, "I knew you were going to get us into some kind of trouble and I didn't want to hear you complain the entire time we were in a brig"

"As I recall, it was _you _who pushed on that rock that made that noise that pissed off the alien"

"Shut up and play with your doohickey"

Jacob walked back over to the bed and pushed one of the buttons, a side of the square lit up and he ran his finger over it until a gentle blast of rock music could be heard screeching from the box shape.

Daniel exchanged fond glances with Teal'c, "Oh yeah" Danny muttered, "Those are our kids alright"

The two men chose to enter the room and both young adults abandoned their prior activities to greet them.

"Hey" Daniel greeted, "I was wondering if I could talk to you?" he more or less directed the question at Amanda and both Teal'c and Jacob got the hint.

The Jaffa escorted the younger man along with a guard to the commissary and left the father and daughter to their discussion.

Daniel pulled up a chair an smiled his warm polite smile, the one he gave when he was trying to get on a stranger's good side so they would tell him what he wanted to know about their culture.

Amanda bowed her head slightly and closed her book. She couldn't stand that smile…not after all these years having lived without it.

Daniel seemed to sense her sudden turn of depression and he frowned, perplexed. He glanced at the title of her book as a means to start a conversation on a safe subject.

"Reincarnation?" he voiced, caught off-guard by the book's apparent topic.

"I'm exploring the possibility that the idea of reincarnation on earth could be derived from ascension. Perhaps people who were ascended and chose to retake human form, then could remember things that happened before they died," she explained.

"That's an excellent theory," Daniel noted, taking the book in hand.

Amanda smiled slightly and glanced around the room, seemingly ill at ease.

"What's wrong?" Daniel asked, concerned, not being able to shake the depressing vibes he felt waft off her presence.

Amanda looked at him, trying to cover the fact that she was blinking rapidly to ward off tears, "Nothing…allergies" she replied, reaching for a tissue.

"I invented that excuse" he replied but without much humor as he watched her dab her eyes, "It's being around _me, _isn't it?" he said perceptively.

She tried to fight it off a little longer, but she broke down while looking into his face, "You're dead," she sobbed out, tears seeping from her eyes.

Daniel took a moment to reel at this sudden information, and then quickly rose to go kneel beside and embrace her.

She cried into his shoulder while talking, "You died when I was a kid, nine-years-old…Mom told me you ascended but she didn't know for sure because no one had seen you die…no one was there with you… they didn't find a body…the night before you came into my room and hugged me, told me that Sam and Teal'c and mom would look after me…you told me goodbye, you knew you were leaving"

Daniel held her close and hugged the full-grown woman in his arms, stunned at the news she was telling him.

She slowly began calming down after she'd gotten that initial information out of her system, and he could understand her more clearly, "A year before that Jack died, you were there, you helped him reach ascension without him even realizing it and he shows up every year or so or whenever one of us is in trouble"

She pulled away from him and wiped at her eyes, "My mother left a few months after your funeral, she said she'd be back in a few days but I never saw her again, I think Sam knew where she went but she never told me. Jacob, Lif'kel and I were practically raised together after that…" she noticed how soaked the sleeve of his shirt was and cracked a smile.

"Sorry for crying all over you…you wont go and try to fix things right? You won't screw up the timeline?" she was more worried than anything else now.

"No…no" he assured her with a soft smile, "It's okay, Amanda…I know what it's like to loose your parents"

"Yea, I read your journals after you were gone" she said leaning back in the chair and looking noncommittally at the table as he returned to his seat across from her, "It took me four years to get through all of them"

"I probably filled up enough to start my own library," he said.

She nodded, "You left me everything that was on your bookshelf"

Daniel thought how strange that was to hear. His will currently left Sam with all of his journals, Teal'c with all of his books, and Jack with his fish. He never expected it would change so extravagantly.

"Amanda, if you don't mind me asking…who…who's your mother?" the curiosity was killing him.

Amanda smiled wanly, "You haven't figured it out yet?" she asked doggedly.

He lighten at her sudden return of good nature, "No…is it someone I currently know?"

She shrugged, "Maybe, maybe not"

"Tell me" he coaxed.

"It might wreck the timeline," she said weighing her decision coyly.

"I promise I won't let it influence my choices," he said in a fair tone of voice.

She sighed, still thinking, "Okay, I'll give you a hint…she likes stealing ships and the archeologists aboard them"


	3. Dramtics

Daniel reeled at this information, "Vala…" he muttered, rubbing his hand over his eyes, "Your mother is Vala? How? When?"

Amanda got up as if she hadn't heard him, "I'm hungry, let's get something to eat"

Daniel's mind was too absorbed at the moment to notice she was leaving, "Hey, wait!" he called when he realized she was heading out the door without answering his question. He bounced out of the chair and followed her and the guard.

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Teal'c and Jacob O'Neill were sitting at a booth munching on individual pints of ice cream.

"God I love Ben and Jerry's" Jacob said around a spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough flavor.

"Indeed" Teal'c said, setting his desert aside for a moment.

Jacob sensed the impending conversation from this action and watched the older man lengthily before copying his move, "So, you must be dying to ask me all about you and Ishta" he said.

"That I am not" Teal'c replied, "I am clear on matters concerning myself and the warrior Ishta"

Jacob blinked away that comment, "Right…well, you must want to know about Lif'kel then"

"Indeed…I wish to know when he was conceived," Teal'c stated stoically.

Jacob wrinkled his nose, "I know he was born a year before Amanda and I…as to what happened nine months before that…well" he shrugged.

"Then he is the oldest" Teal'c noted.

"Yeah, he was first…I was about a year after and Amanda's three or four months younger than me" Jacob felt odd discussing this. He shifted uncomfortably and began to attack his ice cream again.

"This topic of conversation disturbs you?" Teal'c posed the question in the way he posed all questions, as if he already knew the answer and required no elaboration.

"Well, I don't want to give you too much info, you might decide to use it to affect the timeline"

"That is an unnecessary concern" Teal'c said, "You have been very vague about when certain events actually occur"

"Still…" he started, but was interrupted by the sudden appearance of his teammate, sliding in next to him, "Oooo, ice cream" she mumbled stealing his spoon and container.

Jacob frowned and tried to take the items back, she slapped his hand away and by the time Daniel was seated next to Teal'c the two were involved in a miniature tug-of-war.

"Get your own" Jacob growled.

"You'll get fat eating all this by yourself" she replied.

"I'll work it off"

"You hate exercise"

"I get plenty of it already, fighting with you"

She discarded the treat in her hand and tackled him. They tumbled to the floor, bumping a food server who was clearing some half eaten slop off from a nearby table and managing to cause him to spill the leftover food in his arms all over them.

The two burst out giggling.

Daniel and Teal'c exchanged glances, "I fear that may share too many similar behavior qualities with their parents" the Jaffa commented.

"Yeah, and just when I was hoping she had nothing of her mother in her" Daniel complained.

Teal'c raised an eyebrow, but spoke no further.

Amanda stood and grabbed a napkin to wipe gravy splotches off her glasses. She held the lenses up to the light and squinted at their minimal cleanliness.

Jacob brushed canned spinach from his pants, "Thanks a lot, now I have to take a shower"

"Don't melt from the water" Amanda quipped, she turned and gave her father a kiss on the cheek, "I'm sure you have more questions, but I'll just let you sulk about our earlier revelation for now"

She was suddenly exhibiting spunkier and less bookish mannerisms, as if to prove to him that it was true, she was indeed the product of his lovely if not dreaded space pirate.

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Samantha Carter read the results of the DNA test while Doctor Linden explained the particulars.

"Both patients have enough common elliels in their genetic code to prove their relation to that of Doctor Jackson, yourself, and General O'Neill…Jacob O'Neill is biologically your son, and Amanda Jackson is Daniel's daughter"

Sam exchanged wincing glances with her CO as the doctor continued.

"Now, I was not able to determine who Amanda's mother was from any samples of female DNA we have recorded on our computers…You can tell Daniel it's no one that currently works at the base, he wanted to know" Linden finished.

"Thanks, Doc" Jack said before Sam and him left the infirmary to break the news to the other half of SG-1.

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"Do you think we should tell them?" Amanda asked as she entered the quest quarters after showering and putting on a fresh uniform.

"Tell them what?" Jacob asked.

She sat down cross-legged on the end of the bed he was lounging on and faced him, "About the separation" she said.

"You mean…?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbows.

She nodded solemnly.

He shook his head, "Let it all play out…after they get the lab results and find out that we are who we say we are their going to have to send us back…hopefully I can calculate a precise time frame according to the rifts and we'll be sent back to our time"

Amanda played with the strings on his boots, "It just makes me depressed when I think about how a year from now…" she trailed off.

"Yeah…" Jacob said, flopping back down on the pillow, "Me too, but everything works out"

Amanda sat up on her knees and crawled towards the headboard, flipping over, she lay next to her friend. She thought about the story that Vala had relayed to her, Jacob, and Lif'kel about an incident that SG-1 never spoke of.

One year from the current point in history the young O'Neill and Jackson were stuck in, SG-1 would be sent to a planet with a yet undiscovered technology. The technologies' purpose was to scan the inhabitants of planet's civilization and deduce what type of world they would most like to be sent to and what environment they would enjoy.

Then the technology, the main computer of which ran under the entire surface of the planet, would use and advanced transportation beam, similar to the Asguard's, and send the people to the most compatible choice of planet for their unique tastes.

Almost immediately after stepping out of the gate, SG-1 was whisked away.

Daniel landed in lavish place filled with royal Egyptian accommodations offset by ancient ruins. The planet had no Stargate.

Sam was sent to an advanced culture entirely created and formed by artificial life forms who lived off the most elaborate technology and founded their world on computers and science. They had no need for a Stargate and had decided to lose it and then forget where it was. They also refused to allow Sam to use their ships to get home, claiming she was too un-advanced to operate one by herself and no one wanted to take the time to show her how.

Teal'c was sent to a world populated by carefree and innocent humans who had never even heard of the Goa'uld or the Stargate, and didn't know if their world had one or not.

For months SG-1 was stuck on these separate worlds, agonizing over how they would get home.

Vala didn't know what was going on with the Tau'ri on earth at the time, but four or five odd months after Daniel had been sent to his not so perfect paradise, she found herself interested in the treasure and luxury that was said to be abundant on a certain planet and she managed to commandeer and Asguard ship in order to get there.

That's where she ran into a scruffy looking Daniel running away from some young maidens who insisted on giving him frequent baths.

"_Well, well, well…_" Vala had commented devilishly, "I leave you alone for a couple of months and you decide to fill the void with a few hundred flirtatious women…Daniel, I think I'm jealous" she pouted at him as he breezed past her into the ship.

"Let's talk about our respective lust lives later, I need to get home" he practically groaned out, flopping down on the floor of the ship, exhausted with relief.

After he'd explained what happened, Vala told him she knew the planet and what it's purpose was, "Quickest way to get what you wish" for she grinned, "But at least I'm smart enough to think of somewhere that has a Stargate along with my every other whim"

With her help they were able to locate Teal'c and Sam within the next few months and take them back to earth.

"Well, it's been fun, Daniel" Vala said when she dropped them off, "But if you wont even have sex with me I can't see the point in a long term relationship"

Less than a year after that, Daniel was proposing.

"If it hadn't been for them going to that planet" Jacob said, interrupting her thoughts, "Dad wouldn't have gotten up the nerve to finally retire and marry mom, Daniel would have never fallen in love with Vala…I think Teal'c might have still gotten with Ishta though"

"It's all a little too "Happy Ending" sweet for me" Amanda confessed.

"So you being depressed over it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that for more than half a year our parents were alone on strange planets with no way home and suffered tragic loss from not being around each other"

"Don't be dramatic"


	4. Kansas

A/N: Thank you for all the kind reviews. I hope you enjoy this next chap.

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Lif'kel embraced his mother and took one last look around peaceful Keb before entering the Stargate to return to earth.

Once on the other side, Cassandra was there to greet him along with a familiar old friend.

"Shifu" Lif'kel bowed, bestowing polite honor upon the ascended liaison.

For years Shifu, formerly known as the Harsseises child, had been the equivalent of a spiritual guide to the members of the SGC and particularly SG-1. He had shown up around the time of Daniel Jackson's death and Amanda Jackson believed that it had been her father's way of letting her know that he had indeed reached that higher plain of existence.

"Shifu has an interesting briefing in store for you, Lif'kel" Cassandra said.

Lif'kel tilted his head to the side, "Did you not call me back to earth for the purpose of retrieving Amanda Jackson and Jacob O'Neill?"

"Yes" Cassandra replied.

"Then should I not first be briefed on the subject matter relating to such a mission?" he asked.

"Yes, Lif'kel, and that is why Shifu's here" Cassie explained.

Lif'kel raised his eyebrows in curiosity and followed the Administrator and their guest out of the embarkation room.

Once they were all seated at the briefing table, Shifu began, "The reason your friends are overdue to arrive is because they have already journeyed home" the man in deep orange and beige robes stated in his gentle layer of voice.

"What does this mean?" Lif'kel wished to know. Everyone liked Shifu, but they would all like him better if he had been born with a "get-to-the-point" gene.

"Your friends have traveled to an age before yours…they were made to leave too early" he answered.

"Then they were caught by the time rift that Jacob O'Neill spoke of" Lif'kel said.

"Apparently" Cassandra stated, "but Shifu won't tell us _what _made them dial out too soon" she seemed to be patiently building frustration, an obvious side effect of having to talk for long periods of time with Shifu.

The calm man looked at her deeply, as he looked at everyone…he never saw the person, only the soul inside of them; his gaze could be taken as either threatening or soothing depending on who you were.

"That is not a relevant detail" he commented.

"It is if I want to send anymore teams back to that planet" Cassie snapped.

"You are an easily tempered woman, Cassandra Frasier…it is a trait that would not serve you well in the afterlife"

"Just get on with it, Shifu," muttered the woman, leaning back in her chair with annoyance.

Lif'kel was curious about the purpose behind Shifu's being here. Normally, the man who seemed to have achieved some culmination of physical humanity and ascension, would only appear in order to test those he guided to enlightenment or provide clearer views of the road ahead…Lif'kel knew not of any requirement for these skills at present.

"I do not believe that it is wise to pursue them yet" Shifu said.

"Why is this?" Lif'kel inquired.

"There is a task they must complete before they leave, they were forced into their present circumstances for a reason"

"Does Jacob not have the knowledge to return himself an Amanda to their own timeline without our assistance?"

"Yes" Shifu paused for a moment, thinking, "But I will see to it that both of them complete the task they must"

"And what exactly do they have to complete and how long is it gonna take?" Cassie cut in.

"As long as it takes" Shifu responded.

"Nice dig at the cliché" Cassie noted.

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Amanda woke up with her face smashed into the side of someone's chest.

She got up quickly, preparing to break a few bones, until she noticed who it was she was lying next to. She glared accusingly at the slumbering form of Jacob O'Neill and rolled herself off the bed, landing on her bottom on the floor and rubbing her tired eyes.

She must have thought herself to sleep again.

She glanced around for her glasses, not having remembered taking them off before dozing. Getting to her feet she squinted through blurry vision and felt around for the framed item on the table, and then the bedside stand.

"They're in the drawer" Jacob managed to grumble out as he slowly woke to find his nearly blind teammate fumbling around the room and making a good job of bashing herself up as she kept running into objects she couldn't see.

Amanda felt her way back to the bedside stand but by that time Jacob had gotten to them and was already handing the spectacles to her, "Thanks" she said with a yawn, "Coffee"

"Oh yes"

"Need some"

"Commissary"

The pair exited their quarters, not even noticing the guards tagging behind them.

A burst of noise greeted them when they entered the make shift cafeteria, Amanda muttered about how cheery some people could be without the incentive of a liquid brown caffeinated blood stream.

Jacob sat down and watched her as she grabbed their coffees.

Waking up beside Amanda was nothing new, SG-1 had to share a tent during off-world missions, but this was the first moment in their friendship he could remember where he'd woken up to her cuddled on his side.

He vaguely remembered growing sleepy and glancing at his watch, seeing that it was 2100 hours, he decided to retire for the night. He thought Amanda would take the other bed in the room once he reported this to her, but she was lost in increasingly lethargic internal thinking and the bantering that would ensue wasn't worth disturbing her for.

He had woken up maybe two hours later to find her still there and having fallen asleep with her glasses on, which he presently removed. He'd thought she looked cute, and again, that wasn't such an uncommon occurrence on his behalf, he'd always thought she was kind of sweet in her own bookish way. What _was_ different this time was the feelings it stirred in him when he thought it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shifu made his entrance into the past by appearing directly behind Amanda as she turned away from the counter in the commissary with a tray that harbored a large pot of coffee and two filled mugs. The contents of which were now splatter all over her hands, boots, and the tray because of her startled reaction to his sudden presence, "Shifu!" she whined.

The guards and a few other people looked automatically towards her, but could see no one there. Amanda noted their reactions and ducked her head, making her way over to the table Jacob was reserving for them.

"Shifu?" Jacob whispered when he saw the monk like man slide into the booth next to his teammate.

"It is good to see you, Jacob…I apologize for startling you, Amanda" he greeted, nodding politely in her direction.

"You think that maybe…I don't know, you could make yourself visible to other people before I start yelling out your name in public" she muttered between long drags of coffee.

"I did not wish to cause alarm," he said.

"Except in me, of course" she retorted.

"You are used to it" he ended pleasantly.

She glared at him.

"So, Shifu, buddy…not that I don't mind the company, but, what are you doing here?" Jacob asked, taking the other mug now resting on the table and guzzling it down in one go.

"I am here to ask you not to attempt returning to your own time, at least not until a later date" Shifu said.

"Oh really?" Jacob responded in a clear tone, as if his friend had just commented on the weather.

"Yes"

"Why?" Amanda asked.

"Because" Shifu offered as an explanation, shrugging is shoulders as if they should already know.

"_Because_…" Jacob probed.

"Your existence may depend on it," he stated simply.

"Okay…well if that's _all_ that depends on us staying here" Amanda commented in a sarcastically uncaring manner.

"Shifu, if we stay here any longer, our entire future could go through an overhaul," said Jacob.

"This was meant to happen…your futures are secure" Shifu replied, just before he began to glow.

"Wait!" Amanda shouted as her friend attempted to disappear, "What is it we're supposed to do!"

The tangled, diamond shaped strands of light dissipated from their vision without any parting words.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

"So…you're saying you have to stay?" Jack asked, leaning back in his office chair and looking at his…_son…_a reality that still took some getting used to.

"Aaaapparently" was the dragged out response as the Major clicked his heals together and glanced around the office, "Ya'know, Cassie painted this place purple when she took over…said it gave the base some "personality"…I like how she decorates it"

Jack rolled his eyes; this kid was way too distractible, "How long?"

"Huh? Oh, until me and Dorothy get back to Kansas?" he attempted to look like he was thinking about it, "I have no idea"

Jack scrubbed his hand through his hair and pulled it down his face, swearing to himself that this kid got his insatiable ability to annoy from his mother.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Amanda went giddy when she saw the working space her father had had set up for her after he heard she might be staying a while.

There were all the current files and records of the ancients and ascension on an oak-wood table that hosted a reading lamp, blank tablets, and an endless supply of sharpened pencils. Across from the table was a bookshelf, stacked with all the necessities from Greek to Babylonian mythology.

She squealed.

And then quickly covered her mouth, surprised by her own response…it was just that she had never been able to accumulate such a range of history in one place before. Amanda had sort of just study the relevant subjects as they were needed; she'd never been able to dedicate an entire day to study such a large number of topics at once.

"So…I take it you like the place" Daniel said with a quirk of his mouth.

Amanda hugged him and then raced to the bookshelf, snatching a pencil and tablet from the table and beginning automatically to copy down categories for everything she wanted to research.

Daniel felt himself smile as he watched her. He would have never thought himself the doting father type, but she brought out the spoiler in him.

Amanda knew she was acting like a kid half her age…squealing, hugging, and calling Daniel "Father" when he was still probably trying to come to terms with the fact that he'd actually be having a child sometime in the future, with Vala no less.

But seeing him…it made her that young girl again…the one she'd been when she'd lost him.

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	5. Future's history

Jacob was in the lab with his mother, watching as she worked on the odd project and providing assistance every now and then.

"So" Sam began, "Why don't you tell me about…well, everything." She said, pulling a pair of safety goggles off her face after she was done welding together some machinery.

"Everything…in our futures, you mean?" he asked.

Jacob was sitting at the other end of her workbench studying some of the blueprints for a new glider his mom was working on and adding or changing some of the equations, making notes based on his own knowledge of the technology.

Sam had expressed several times over the past few hours how impressed she was with his apparent ingenuity and genius, despite his ability (inherited from his father no doubt) to look as if he was the least intelligent human being on the planet.

"Yea…I know I probably shouldn't ask, you have to keep the timeline safe in order to ensure your future's survival, but…" she shrugged and gave him a quirky smile, "I'm curious as hell"

He smiled, "Well, I'm sure Daniel told you what Amanda said" when she gave a confirming nod, he continued, "Okay…up until Daniel and dad passed away, I had lived with you at the Alpha site, you had been promoted to General when I was five and given command of that off-world base. Dad retired so he could be with us."

Jacob was able to relay the events of his childhood much more easily then Amanda had. He was a soldier after all, and trained to keep his emotions separate from his work, his slipped into that mode now when he talked and thought about his father.

Samantha thought it was neat that she had made General, and didn't seem too surprised about what he was telling her.

"I basically got my schooling from military academy that the president had authorized to be placed at the Alpha site so cadets would get used to being away from earth. Amanda and Daniel would drop in every once and a while, he was her teacher, Vala and him took her to the planets they knew were safe and she got to be at dig sites with him.

"Lif'kel stayed with Ishta on Keb most of his childhood. Teal'c was very busy with being on the Jaffa council and we rarely saw him if ever, but Ishta and you had become friends somewhere along the line and you sent me to Keb to be looked after by her when things got a little shaky at the Alpha site and it wasn't safe for me to be there."

Sam interrupted, "I can't imagine Ishta being content with playing mom every day"

Jacob pondered that, "Well, there wasn't too much fighting to be done, on battlefield at least, most of the drama that weighed on the Jaffa was political. And she certainly couldn't stand sitting through those boring talks all day, at least on Keb she was required to forage for the things they needed to live. And when a minor Goa'uld decided it would be a good idea to start ruling the galaxies again, she was called to help defeat him.

"Anyway, later on, dad died…I can't tell you how, you might try to prevent it" Jacob tried to gage his mother's reaction.

There was a pause in her tinkering with another piece of technology while listening to him…she must have decided that she would respond to that incident when it occurred, because she took in the information, then brushed it to the back of her mind. "Yes, Daniel told me that Amanda said he was there and helped the General ascend"

"Right, and when Daniel died a year later, Teal'c and you decided to keep close to each other for emotional support. We moved to Keb and you decided to retire. Vala and Amanda came there as well to recover, we all thought they would only be with us until they had finished grieving, but then Vala took off somewhere and Amanda was stuck with us.

"I gated to the Alpha site to finish my military training and joined the Air Force. Almost immediately afterwards, Cassandra was put as Civilian Administrator and her first act as such was to get rid of the current SG-1 on the grounds that they had "No character whatsoever" and got me transferred from the Alpha site to the SGC.

"I was given command of SG-1 and told that I could pick anyone I wanted as my team. I chose Amanda and Lif'kel, I already knew the type of people they were, and that I could trust them." He finished the short recapture of his history up to that point.

"Wow…that's a lot to process," Sam said, running her hand through her short hair and taking a seat behind a random scattering of unfinished projects.

"Yeah" Jacob was quiet as he returned to his input on her blueprints.

"There's something that's been nagging at me though" Sam said, "How did you get promoted to Major so quickly?"

"They wanted someone to run the Alpha site. It was already clear to my superiors that I was the best soldier they currently had for the job, I just didn't have the rank yet. The promotions were coming at me almost every month…whatever officer or politician wanted me to lead the site held a pretty snazzy position, they capitalized on every excuse in the book to get me up to the right rank until Cassie snatched me out of there"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SG-1 sat in the commissary as Sam told them the details of her conversation with Jacob.

"Wow…" Daniel commented around a mouthful of waffles.

"That's what I said," Sam mentioned, pushing the food around on her plate.

"Was Jacob O'Neill not concerned that we may try to alter these events that are to take place?" Teal'c asked.

"Well, that's the thing, without knowing exactly when all of this is supposed to happen, there isn't much we can do about it" Sam said in a slightly despairing manner.

"You are concerned with preventing General O'Neill's death" Teal'c noted.

The Colonel sighed, "I'm trying not to think about it but…" she shrugged and attempted to occupy her mind with something else.

"He's going to ascend, Sam" Daniel offered as consolation, "I mean, I know you took it pretty rough when that happened to me, but won't it be a bit easier the second time around. Amanda said he shows up now and then…I'm sure you and him get to see each other"

Sam sunk down in her chair, concentrating on the matter, "Maybe" was all she said.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack watched Amanda Jackson scamper around her temporary office, constantly moving as she jotted down bits of information, mumbling to herself with at least one book balanced open in her arm an others already strewn in random areas around the small space.

Jacob sat on her desk, swinging his legs and making paper airplanes from a stack of discarded printing paper he had stolen from a supply closet.

He held up he newest model and closed one eye, using the other to line up his target. He aimed and fired, the folded aviation toy landed on the open book currently in Amanda's hands.

She rolled her eyes in annoyance and was about to blow the offending object off her reading material when she noticed something written on it. Jack had seen his son scribble a note upon the plane just a moment before folding it.

She sighed tolerantly and set aside her work, glancing at him as she opened the paper. She giggled after she read the message, "No" she said in answer to what he'd written.

"Please" he pouted, hoping off the desk and going over to her.

"I have-"

"Ah" he interrupted, "Do _not _say you have work to do. You've been working all morning and half the afternoon"

She wrinkled her nose in thought, "Okay fine…_one _dance"

He grinned widely and dug out a metal cube from his pocket. He pressed a button on it smooth surface and chose what he wanted the object to play.

A jazzy, oldie but goodie, streamed from the tiny box that Jacob now set on the table as he took her hands in his and twirled her around the room.

Jack was shocked at the look his saw on his son's face; it was the same look he saw in the mirror every time he thought about Sam…that sweet, slow smiled, accompanied by twinkling eyes and a taste of euphoria on his heart.

He watched his son and Daniel's daughter swing around the room, laughing, at some untold joke…laughing at life in general…simply happy.

Jack glanced at the floor and leaned up from the doorjamb where he'd been for almost a half an hour watching the pair…thinking about his future and how he hoped it would turn out.

Neither of them had noticed him observing them and neither noticed him leave.

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	6. Mommy's here

A/N: Sorry, I have no idea if I'm spelling Vala's last name correctly. Thanks for all the kind reviews.

----------------------------------------

"So" Jacob asked after they had finished waltzing around Amanda's office and he reclaimed his seat, "What do you think it is we're supposed to accomplish in this timeline before we go home?"

Amanda shrugged, picking up her book, "I have no idea. Maybe Shifu will decide to grace us with hisomnipotent presence in a while and give use a cryptic metaphor to go on"

The sound of klaxons startled the two teammates as Walter Davis' voice blared over the intercom, "Unauthorized off-world activation!"

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Shifu watched from his advantageous form of invisible energy as a communication was sent through the gate to the control room at the SGC.

The alluring voice of an as yet unidentified female could be heard transmitting over the gate room speakers.

SG-1 and General O'Neill piled into the room and as the voice continued to speak Daniel's face took on an expression of consternation, "Hello, this is Vala Malderon, normally I would've loved to have come to your fair planet by ship but I lost mine…well, it wasn't _really _mine…I was wondering if we could all have a lovely chat, there's something I must discuss with Daniel Jackson"

Jack, Teal'c, and Sam faced Daniel sequentially. The archaeologist pressed the palm of his hand to his face and groaned deeply.

"Sir?" Walter asked, wanting to know if it was safe to open the Iris.

Jack raised his eyebrows at the Sergeant, "Why don't you ask, Danny boy here?"

Walter turned to Daniel who still had his eyes squeezed shut wishing he had never even gotten out of bed the morning General Hammond had asked him to join the search and rescue team to Atlantis.

After several more seconds of wistful thinking that perhaps this was only a nightmare, Daniel leaned over the control booth and pressed the button that would allow him to talk to the person waiting on the other side of the gate, "What do you want?" he asked bitterly.

"_Daniel" _Vala replied, stressing his name with mock affection that made the man cringe, "A little Ancient told me that you had recently received an interesting visitor"

Shifu allotted himself a satisfied smile. He was the one who'd had it arranged for Vala to come to earth, Amanda and Jacob would need her here in order to achieve the task they'd been sent back for.

"What would you want with a visitor to earth?" Daniel asked flatly.

"Plenty if she is who I heard she is," Vala countered breezily.

Daniel paused nervously, thinking, "Let me get back to you" he said, and gave Walter the nod to disengage the Iris.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Mom found out I was here?" Amanda asked, sitting at the briefing table across from her father, "How?"

"She said and Ancient told her," Daniel answered in a tone that blatantly stated he did not believe this snippet of information.

Amanda exchanged glances with Jacob, "You think…?" she asked.

"You betcha" Jacob replied.

"I wish you two would quit holding conversations with only the beginnings of sentences" Jack snapped. Everyone stared at him.

"What!" Jack asked, raising his arms above his head and waving them around, "It's getting on my nerves"

"Sir…" Sam explained patiently, "We talk like that all the time"

Jack thought about this for a grand five seconds before rebutting, "No we don't"

"Yes we do" Daniel piped back automatically.

"Don't"

"Do"

"Don't"

"Do"

"Don't"

"I believe that we do in fact, converse mostly in a similar manner towards each other, O'Neill" Teal'c stated, effectively squelching anymore arguments out of the commander, "But that debate is not relative to the matter at hand…should we allow Vala Malderon to come to earth and meet her daughter?"

Amanda shared looks with Jacob once again, both of them suspecting it was the work of Shifu that had brought the young Jackson's mother to contact earth. Meaning that Vala must have something to do with whatever reason the two had been consequently sent back in the past for.

"I think we should let her through," Amanda said.

"I think we should send someone through to her first" Daniel warned, "She might be harboring weapons"

Amanda took slight offense to this suggestion, it was her mother and his future wife they were talking about here, "She's a space pirate, of course she has weapons…she's not going to use them on anybody"

"Unless they happen to be wearing a Rolex" Daniel griped.

-------------------------------------------------------

Jack waited at the bottom of the ramp so he could greet their latest guest, as was the procedure. Daniel had gone into hiding under a desk somewhere and Amanda was draining the base of every last drop of coffee she could find in order to calm her nerves…something about reuniting with a caregiver who had allegedly abandoned you being psychologically damaging.

When Vala appeared, she looked around with the same approving look that everyone man in the embarkation room was suddenly giving her.

Her brunette locks were in a thick braid that was wrapped several times in a figure eight shape at the crown of her head. She had dark eyes that flashed with the reflection of wickedly fun thoughts that constantly ran through her brain. She had a wonderful body that was accented by black leather pants and a taught black tank top.

Jack had no idea why Daniel had whined about this woman so much in report after returning home on Prometheus.

"I'm Brigadier General Jack O'Neill, welcome," he said as the wormhole disengaged and she sauntered towards him.

"Well, aren't _you _good looking" she stated mildly, brushing past him on her way to the door, "For an, _older _man, that is."

Jack drew his eyebrows together at this comment as he escorted her out.

-----------------------------------------------------

"Glad to see me, Daniel?" she asked, lighting up when the anthropologist entered the briefing room.

"No" was all he said.

She frowned, then tipped her head to the side as if to say: "That's okay, you'll get over it" and glanced behind him at the entrance he had just walked through.

There stood Amanda, hesitated at the doorway.

Vala's smile turned from sharp and seductive to soft and gentle with a blink, she headed over to stand in front of the girl, scrutinizing every detail of her appearance.

"You certainly take after your father," she said serenely.

"You're familiar with the concept of time travel, then?" Amanda asked Vala out of curiosity spawned from her seemingly instant acceptance that she was her daughter.

"Oh, yes, time travel and I go way back," Vala said sleekly as she leaned against the doorjamb and reached out to touch her daughter's face.

Amanda smirked at the pun, despite herself, and allowed the contact to occur.

"The man who told me about you…" Vala said, dropping her hand to her side, "He told me what's supposed to happen…in our futures…rather depressing, isn't it?" she said knowingly.

"Yes." Was all Amanda managed to choke out. Seeing her mother again was having the same effect on her as seeing her dad. She wanted to cry.

Vala seemed to sense this, because she turned to SG-1 who was seated in the room, "Do you think you could give us a minute?" she asked.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm sure I had a good reason for leaving" Vala offered weakly when they were alone.

"I'm sure you did" Amanda replied, "You just didn't bother to tell me what it was"

"Did you ever forgive me?" the space pirate asked, needing to know the answer.

"Eventually…" Amanda got up from the seat she had taken and strolled over to be in front of her mother, who was still standing.

Vala was caught completely off guard when the girl hugged her close and muttered into her shoulder, "I missed you"

The woman was touched…she had never figured herself for the mother figure type, mostly because she had given up a long time ago on ever finding the guy who would make her want to have a child, the fabled Mr. Right. And with her chosen profession, a kid wasn't exactly the smartest thing to have hanging around.

But every once in a while she'd see that one couple or parent with their children. That one that made her gut feel pleasantly queasy with longing…wondering what if…

Her arms embraced her daughter tightly.

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	7. Enlightenment

Shifu strolled the temples of Keb alongside Lif'kel.

Lif'kel was reverent and silent as they walked, introspective as always, mostly just observing his surroundings. Shifu updated him on the events that were taking place in the past with his friends.

The ascended being hesitated in his speech when the two arrived at a window, which on Keb meant a waist to ceiling length rectangle carved in the sandstone walls of its establishments, providing a grand view to the landscape outside.

These windows were usually set above strips of a wild garden that border most of the planet's buildings, so in warm weather, it's thick ledge invited the temples inhabitants to perch upon it and pick the flowers below while being able to admire the sunset or sunrise.

Keb must have been the most gorgeous world in every galaxy at one point in history. It had the most glinting and wonderful ruins a few miles from the main network of foundations, which had been discovered by Lif'kel and Ishta after living there for a while.

The sky was completely unobstructed and untainted. The ground flourished with streams, and plants that blossomed widely, creating the most magical effect on a person.

Shifu saw why Oma Desala loved taking him here to be taught. He remembered a saying she had told him during a brilliantly clear evening, where the stars seemed as large and touchable from the ground as they were from space, "Paradise is the beauty of all natural creation…the road to enlightenment passes this way"

The view currently formed outside of the window Lif'kel and him had stopped at hosted Teal'c and Ishta, both looking as young and fit as they had been twenty-seven years ago. Tritonin had to replicate perfectly the same metabolite effects as a Goa'uld larva in order for the Jaffa to survive, so the aging results were the same.

Away from them, closer to the temple, was Sam, who was about sixty years old now. She had a few wrinkles on her face, and her once short blond hair had grown out to her mid back and was tied away from her face, light yellow strands now streaked with white. She had managed to keep her body in good condition by taking frequent hikes and participating in combat practice with Teal'c and Ishta.

She was currently analyzing the properties of a plant a few yards away from her friends.

"Growing old" Lif'kel commented, "in such a peaceful place, seems an unfit way to finish a life for a warrior such as Samantha Carter"

"Hopefully, the task I have appointed your teammates will alter this outcome slightly" Shifu said quietly.

Lif'kel looked at him, "Do the ascended beings not have rules against interference in the fate of individual humans?"

"Yes…but Oma showed me all the loopholes before she…left" he said, smiling, "Also, I am not truly ascended, I am…a combination of sorts…and humans are allowed to interfere in the fate of other humans"

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"Are we really going to let him do this?" the Ascended being of Daniel Jackson asked as he slid into a booth in Enlightenment Café next to Jack and across from Oma.

The woman shrugged, "He is not technically breaking the rules" she said, sipping a cup of coffee.

"Won't the Others do that glowy thunder an' lightning thing they do if fate is altered?" Jack said, waving his hands around.

"No…Let's just say, the Others have been a little more lenient with the rules ever since I defeated Anubis" Oma replied, trying to put their minds at ease, "Once Shifu's plan is completed, everyone of the members of SG-1, past and present, will get the life they deserve. A…happy ending" she said with a smile.

"You mean, I could go back to being with Samantha and Jacob?" Jack asked hopefully.

"Yes"

"And I can come out of galactic hiding so Vala will never have to get herself killed hunting down that artifact, and Amanda won't have to lose either of us?" Daniel questioned.

"Yep"

"I don't know about you, Danny Boy, but doesn't that sound just a bit too easy?" Jack asked.

"Well, not exactly" Daniel said, leaning forward, "You see, when you got shot by that conspiracy theorist after being recalled to earth for exploitation of your expertise concerning Homeland Security-"

Jack cringed.

"-And I found that Goa'uld technology had been influencing your murderer's mental state, and that it had possibly been implanted by a rogue Ancient, I studied my ass off trying to find this Ancient and realized I would need to ascend once again to do it. Once I did that, with Oma's help, I was able to find the culprit and the device that would stop him from altering the power of the System Lords on a cosmological scale. He had to kill you and the rest of SG-1 if he was going to reiterate the Goa'uld as the general prominence of the galaxy"

"Yeah, see, I never got that, why would _anyone _want the Goa'uld back in power?" Jack asked.

"Because he believed it was the proper fate of the universe" Oma explained.

Jack blanked for a moment, "Yeah, still don't get it"

Daniel sighed, "His motivations aren't that important, what is important is that I had to go visit Vala and tell her where to get the device, then I had to fill in Sam so she'd know how to get the device operational once it was found. I didn't plan for a couple of rival thieves to be looking for the same artifact in order to make a profit. They killed Vala, and lost the device on some backwater black market where its later owner ended indirectly destroying it when his ship got blown up by some aliens he'd pissed off.

"Now that rogue Ancient is still on the loose and neither of us can reclaim human form until we've found him. But by sending Jacob and Amanda back in time, all they have to do is find the device, give you and Sam an early shove into each other's arms, and Vala and I, then we'll have a head start on this guy and be able to stop him" Daniel finished.

"See" Jack said, "I love it when you try and explain things, they always sound more complicated coming from you. I feel like we're actually accomplishing something"

"We are" Daniel responded.

"Well, it feels like were working harder to do it" Jack commented.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"You want us to play match maker to our parents?" Jacob asked in surprise at what Shifu had just told them.

"If their unions occur earlier, there is a chance that Jack O'Neill and Daniel Jackson will not become physically deceased" the being explained.

"How so?" Amanda asked, "I mean, I see how timing might effect Jacob's dad's death, but we don't even know why mine was killed"

"Oh, there is more to it. But this is the first step in the process" Shifu answered before disappearing.

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Jacob rolled his eyes and almost bolted away from his position outside the door to his mother's office.

"Don't even think about it" the toneless phrase that he heard almost on a daily basis fell from his friend's lips as she straightened her standard military jacket and plastered a smile on her face.

He gave her a pout, "This is so…_wrong_" he whined, repeatedly snapping his fingers in nervousness.

She didn't say anything to that; just grabbed his hand to make him stop the incessant clicking noise he was making with his fingers.

"It's all a major cliché, too" he muttered as she knocked on the office door.

"Come in" came the clipped professional reply.

Amanda grinned her way into the room, "Hi, Sam" she said cheerily.

"Hello" Sam said, responding automatically to her infectious good mood.

"Hey, mom" Jacob moped, following his teammate inside, "We're bored"

She raised her eyebrows, "I have a naquadah generator you could screw around with" she suggested.

"No good, we need to get off base…do you think you could take us somewhere?" it was a ploy from "hello".

Sam glanced down at the paperwork she still had to finish…and decided she needed an excuse to get out of it, "Okay, I'll have to get permission from the General first, though" she said, picking up her phone.

"Oh, ask Jack to come with us" Amanda suggested in a whisper when the man on the other end of the phone picked up, as if it was an idea she had just come up with.

Sam raised her eyebrows, but asked anyway.

Amanda spared a mischievous wink in Jacob's direction; he glared in response.


	8. Artifacts

O'Malley's was always a bit quiet during the early afternoon, once the lunch crowd had filed out, and their seemed to be only four occupants in the entire place.

Sitting at a table in the middle of the room, Jack and Sam sat sipping beers across from Jacob and Amanda, "I've been here this early" Jack commented, glancing around at the nearly empty establishment, "It's kinda nice"

Amanda absently dipped a straw in and out of her cream soda and repeatedly snatched onion rings from Jacob's plate as retaliation for not allowing her to have any alcohol. He swatted at her hand for the third or fourth time since their food had arrived, pretending to be annoyed, but secretly finding her antics endearing.

"You'd get drunk after the first bottle, anyway" he said as an excuse, taking his revenge on her food theft by stealing her burger and pouring chipotle sauce on the contents, knowing she wouldn't be able to eat it because she was allergic to the spice.

It didn't matter; they always ended up ordering food that only the other of them would eat and traded plates halfway through the meal after munching off the cuisine that respectively their teammate should have been eating.

This habit had begun back when they were kids. To celebrate Sam's promotion to General, their parents had taken them all to earth to have dinner. Amanda, even though she had been about four years old at the time, was a very picky eater who could spell "Antidisestablishmentarianism". Which for some reason had very much aggravated the three-month-older-than-her-and-wouldn't-let-her-forget-it, Jacob O'Neill.

Amanda hadn't liked anything on her plate, which had been tailored around her food allergies. She didn't complain, she was much too polite, even at that age. But she did poke at her food rather irritatingly, until Jacob pushed some of the vegetables that his parents had forced upon him onto her plate, and in exchange stole her untouched cheese sticks.

Amanda had tentatively taken a bite of the cabbage she was supposedly allergic to. When she didn't break out in hives, the two children had quickly exchanged plates.

Jacob swore that the girl would have starved through her childhood if it weren't for him.

Jack and Sam watched the two young prodigies and the things that occurred between them. Jack shot a glance at Sam when Jacob slid his plate over to his teammate and she gave him hers.

Sam bit the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling at the scene, remembering many times where Jack and her had done similar bartering, especially when it came to base food.

----------------------------------------------

Shifu sighed in exasperation, his invisible form straddling a chair in O'Malley's that was set across from the table his friend's were at.

They were supposed to be matchmaking, but Jacob was too busy being smitten with an oblivious Amanda to be of any help. At least Amanda had started asking questions, "So, what did you two think of each other when you first met?" she said conversationally.

Jack and Sam adverted their eyes, neither of them wanting to answer.

"Oh, c'mon" Amanda said, "It couldn't have been _that _bad"

"I thought he was an egotistical jerk," Sam finally answered. Jack looked at her sharply; she cleared her throat, "Ahem…Sorry, Sir" she muttered, taking an anesthetic gulp of her beer.

"Jack…" Amanda prompted in a tone that wanted to make Jack reply "Daniel…"

Seriously, the girl was too much like her dad.

"I thought she was way too good looking to be as smart as she was" came the answer, which Jack had to practically wrench out of himself.

He covered his tracks fast with, "Then she said "Theoretical Astrophysicist" and started saying stuff about molecular something or other and I kind of blanked from there…didn't even realize I was suddenly being humiliated in front of Feretti and Kawalsky, who had a nice laugh at my expense"

Sam grinned, "Yea, he wasn't all that bad once I broke him in"

Jack glared, "What is it with you scientists having to break in us military types?"

"I'm military too, Sir" she evaded.

"Then I'm sure Daniel's got you whipped by now, as well" he shot back.

Shifu smiled approvingly. Once the banter started between them, everything else came pretty smoothly.

Amanda and Jacob sensed the change in pace also and winked at each other. They had gotten the proverbial ball rolling. Now it was time to loosen a few bolts on Daniel and Vala.

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Arrrgh!" Came the ear-shattering yell from the open office door.

Amanda and Jacob leant into view of the entryway with amused and curious expressions.

Daniel Jackson's face was red with anger, starring at a calm Vala who was standing over a shattered mess of artifacts on the floor.

"Whoooops" she offered, "Heh, those weren't very important…right?"

Daniel clenched his fists and turned, facing the wall and closing his eyes and muttering under his breath, "Why me? Why _mmmeee_…"

"Go to your happy place, dad" Amanda encouraged, although she knew he couldn't hear her from all the smoke piping out of his ears. She quickly motioned her mother to get out of the room.

Vala tried to creep silently away from Daniel's fuming space, but he turned around with cold murder in his eyes before she got to the door. She bolted and Daniel raced after her.

"You know!" the former Goa'uld shouted behind her, "Sex is a _much _better conduit for venting frustration"

"Great, so when I'm done killing you I'll sleep with somebody" Daniel growled back as he skidded around a sharp corner in deadly pursuit of his victim.

Jacob and Amanda were running after the two, trying to keep up, "How in the universe did they ever survive married life?" Jacob huffed out. "Are you kidding" Amanda said, "This is their version of foreplay"

"You poor, disturbed child" he replied, rounding a turn and coming to a dead stop so that Amanda rammed into him and they both fell in a heap to the ground.

Quickly scampering up to see why her friend had stopped so abruptly, she noticed tons of interested people gathered in the corridor looking on at the sight of the prestigious Dr. Jackson pinning down the scrumptious Vala Malderon.

"I don't know why you're so upset," the woman said while crossing her arms over her chest, unfazed by their current public audience and the fact that Daniel was straddling her combat style in front of all these people. "I'm sure there are a lot more of those dusty jeweled things lying around on some deserted planet"

Daniel boiled, "Those were perfectly preserved original Greek statues of the virgin goddesses carved from the gems that the depicted deities were said to have favored most…they were professionally dated at having been made around 456 _B.C.! _…They were said to have been created at Olympus by Hesphaistus _himself" _

Amanda cringed in sympathy, knowing that her father was close to tears at the loss of such an astounding group of artifacts. She was probably the only person in the immediate vicinity that knew what extraordinary finds those statues were.

"Oooo, were they valuable? How much could you have gotten for them?" Vala said, suddenly interested.

Daniel's lips disappeared in a thin line and an unidentifiable expression crossed his face before he shook the woman beneath him fiercely, "Yes they were VALUABLE!" he snapped out, "They _were _estimated at over thirty million dollars if the right buyer came along…I was lucky enough to be the only person on earth to discover them at a dig in Athens and therefore academically recognized as the proprietor of some of the earliest known sculpted Greek art made from such rare stones!"

Vala pouted as the shaking continued and kneed him in the groin when she decided she'd had enough of it.

The action shocked Daniel off her and he reeled in the momentary pain that followed. Vala got up "Well maybe if you would tell me this stuff in the first place so I know what historical junk to be careful around, this wouldn't have happened."

She sauntered away and Daniel rose, spinning on his heel in the opposite direction.

He locked himself in his office and no one saw him for the rest of the day.

Jacob turned to Amanda and raised his eyebrows, "Foreplay, huh?"

She shrugged sheepishly.

"Okey doke, then" Jacob said, "Looks like we've got our work hammered out for us"

--------------------------------------------------------

"Well zippeddy-doo-da" Ascended being Jack said as he read the Ancient Times, "Looks like Samantha and I are off to a good start, but you and Vala aren't lookin' so hot" he commented, turning the page of the newspaper.

Daniel rolled his eyes over in Jack's direction while lounging in a booth at Enlightenment Café with his legs stretched out over the seat and his back leaning against the wall, "Really?"

"Yep, she broke some of your toys"

"Which ones?" he seemed nonchalant.

"Some virgin goddess statue things"

Daniel jumped up instantly and snatched the paper out of Jack's hands, "WHAT!" he exclaimed, reading the article.

Daniel moaned in a painful voice and crumbled the paper up tossing it behind him and sliding back into the booth.

"Hey, I was reading that" Jack muttered with exasperation, getting up to retrieve the paper as Daniel folded his arms over the table and smothered his face into them, moping.

--------------------------------------

Vala stormed around the quest quarters for a while, brooding over Daniel.

"You could get him something to make up for it" Amanda suggested from where she sat, "It needs to be pretty rare though…something good enough to occupy his mind until he gets over the statues"

Just then, Shifu appeared, startling both women, "I have just the thing" he said. And told them about the artifact that would, as yet unknown to them, save the future Daniel's life by stopping the rogue Ancient.


	9. Arachnid

"You want me to send you on a mission?" a bewildered Generally Jack O'Neill asked his son who was once again standing mindlessly in his office requesting things.

"Well…it's very important that we find this artifact apparently…and it should only take us a couple of days" Jacob shrugged, scrunching his face at the drab office and contemplating more décor tips.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Amanda scanned the ruins of the planet expertly and managed to concentrate properly on the task at hand, even though there was a stiff marine hovering over her, looking rather upset about life in general, but probably focusing that annoyance on doctors of every educational field at the moment.

Shifu had told her the gate coordinates and what to look for, but had been vague about the item's importance. So Jacob had presently spent an hour in his father's office trying to confuse O'Neill senior with some well placed technobabble in order to convince him to let them go.

He finally got Jack aggravated enough to put them under the unmerciful watch of SG-3, and gave the two a grand total of three hours to find what they were looking for.

Amanda worked efficiently, albeit at a faster pace than she would have normally taken.

Jacob helped her by carrying her books and research in his hand while she tried to find clues in the text on the walls of the ruins. Searching for something to point them in the right direction.

"Doesn't this all seem a bit extravagant for simply getting Vala back in Daniel's good graces?" Jacob grumbled.

Amanda ran her fingers over the indentation of the as far extinct dialect while she answered, "Shifu says the artifact is also vital in saving both our father's in the future. But he didn't tell me how"

Jacob shifted the supply of reference material in his hands and relaxed into a comfortable stance.

From the intensity of what he liked to call Amanda's "Preoccupation mode", he expected to be here a while, so he racked his mind for something to do.

Searching the nearby area and finding a nice looking boulder to sit on, he promptly focused his brain on a very tasking challenge…watching his favorite archeologist being cute.

------------------------------

An hour later, Amanda bounced up from where she was crouched in front of a particular wall and whipped a tablet off the stack of things Jacob was holding for her.

Her suddenly more animated motions interrupted the train of thoughts he had been vigorously concentrating on her, keeping him pleasantly entertained for the past sixty minutes.

"What'dya find" he asked as she furiously scribbled down some things he couldn't understand.

"Well, the language used on the walls seems to be a cross between German and ancient Greek…which is odd because there isn't any documented combination that the SGC has come across which relates to-"

"Amanda…" Jacob cut her off, tapping his watch.

"Oh…so, I managed to make out a rough translation and I think the artifact is buried about eleven clicks from here"

------------------------------------------------------------

"So you think Shifu is going to tell us why this thing is so important now?" Jacob asked a while later as he sat in one of the SGC labs studying the energy properties emitting from the compact device they had found.

"Not a chance" Amanda replied.

Jacob wrote down the energy wave equivalent and worked with a few numbers and diagrams, calculating whether or not it would be safe to tinker with so he could discover its purpose.

"Care to make a bet?"

She smiled, "Twenty bucks says we don't find out until we're seventy"

"How come I can never get you to bet that much on hockey?" he whined.

"Because football's a much better sport"

Jacob sucked in an astonished breath, "That is _so_ sacrilegious…"

"At least football players manage to keep all their teeth intact before they turn fifty"

"My point exactly"

-------------------------------------------------------------

After a while of fiddling with device and finding nothing useful, Jacob passed it off to Amanda so she could study the writing on it.

"Interesting" she commented once they were in her office, "The writing on here looks Ancient…I'm going to have to get my father to help."

Jacob walked over to the phone conveniently hooked on the wall and called Daniel.

The older man was there in a short while helping with the translation.

It took maybe ten seconds for Jacob to get bored, and so he wandered down to the commissary, where he found Sergeant Davis having a nice chat with Siler.

In the future time, the two men had followed Sam to the Alpha site on the claim that things would be pretty boring without SG-1 around to either cause or fend off global disaster.

Carter enjoyed the men's company when the rest of her team, including Jack, were otherwise engaged and things were going slowly on the work front. Siler had even brought her motorcycle (which she had given to him before taking the command) when he transferred, and they passed the time by improving its aspects in one area or another.

Walter had once told a young Jacob that his mother was the most self sustained General he'd ever worked for, and it was nice to be secretary to someone who didn't need to be baby sat for a change.

Jacob grabbed a bottle of water on his way over to the pair.

"Mind if I join you, fellas?" he asked.

The two men looked interestedly at Major O'Neill and nodded for him to sit down. Jacob thought about how odd it was to outrank Davis, who had made it to Captain by the time the young O'Neill had joined the Academy.

The boy searched for a conversation started and grinned slightly when he saw that the other men were looking at him in that alert way that all prominent base gossips usually did.

"You know it's weird…" he began, deciding to string them along with a few juicy details, "I mean, mom and-…that is, Sam and Jack, were always flirting and fooling around with each other when I was a kid…it's odd to see them so professional"

Walter ate up the little snippet of information with a Cheshire comparable smile, and Jacob knew the whole base would hear some elaborated truth of what he'd just mentioned before the day was out.

"Actually, they're quite friendly towards each other most of the time" Siler said. His mind seemed to wander for a minute before he produced a coy smile, "Have you ever heard of the Zay'tarc incident?" he asked Jacob.

"Or the Land of Light?" Walter added with a smirk.

Jacob frowned…he didn't like being out of the loop, "No, why?"

The men held back chuckles, "Well, if your parents didn't mention it I guess we shouldn't tell you" Davis said, although he had absolutely no intention of withholding the information.

"Tell me what?" Jacob begged. He could tell it was some good dirt, and he really wanted to know the dish on his parents.

"Well…" Siler started, and the three men settled in for a very amusing lunch hour.

-------------------------------------------------------

It was a few hours before Daniel and Amanda finished the translation in its entirety, and read the inscription they had come up with.

"Thos who yield the Balance are the bringers of justice to the tampering of Fate" Daniel read, glancing over at his daughter, "What do you think it means?"

Amanda thought for a moment, "Well, the writing I discovered on the ruins of the planet was in a dialect that seemed to be a hybrid of Greek and German language. We know that the Goa'uld and other species tend to emulate earth mythology, so perhaps there's a clue to figuring it out in one or another of those culture's collective legends"

Daniel agreed inwardly and the two bit their bottom lips simultaneously as they mulled over their knowledge of both civilizations.

Amanda was the first to hit on something and she headed over to the bookshelf, grabbing a hardcover that contained popular Greek myths.

She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for and voiced her line of thinking aloud, "Athena was the Greek goddess of wisdom and justice…her guidance was usually sought pertaining to matters of the court…"

Daniel nodded, "Yes…you could even say she was a "balancer" of sorts…she was a defensive warrior, yet also a fair diplomat"

Amanda read to herself while listening to her father's analogy, "I'm not sure why, but for some reason I keep remembering the story of Arachnia…"

"You mean the weaver?" Daniel asked, curious.

"Yes…according to mythology she was an extraordinary artist when it came to making tapestries…those around her believed that she had been blessed by Athena herself, who was also patron of the arts…"

"But the girl got too boastful" Daniel continued for her, "she was determined to prove that she was better than even Athena, so they had a constest, to see which one could make the most beautiful tapestry"

"And Arachnia made the mistake of choosing her theme for the tapestry as being the romantic exploits of the gods…this offended Athena, who then turned the girl into a spider…" Amanda tapered.

"Which is where we supposedly got the name for it…Arachnid, an animal doomed to weave for as long as it lived" Daniel finished.

"Yea" Amanda nodded, "If you think about it, it's a pretty good analogy for why Shifu wants Jacob and I here…metaphorically, so we can weave a better tapestry of our fates…"

She picked up the device contemplatively, "If that's correct than this is probably some sort of alteration device, or something that hinders the alteration, of fate"

Shifu appeared again, once more startling those around him. Daniel went livid at the site of the full-grown, yet still recognizable man.

"I love it when I'm right" Amanda commented with a grin, taking her friend's appearance as a sign of her correct assumptions.

Shifu bowed slightly in acknowledgement of what she had accomplished. Then he turned to Daniel.

"You must take to device and safe guard it until the time is right for it to be used" he said.

Daniel blinked, still startled by the being's presence, "Um…Okay" he agreed.

"Amanda, I will now escort you and Jacob back home" Shifu said.

----------------------------------------------------------------------


	10. Click your heals

A/N: Oh thank you all so much for your kind reviews. I really wanted to do more chapters, but I think that I should probably end it in this chap and perhaps an epilogue because I'm not very good at writing long stories, I tend to run out of drive for them by the tenth chapter and then they go unfinished, which I don't want to happen to this one because I've enjoyed writing it and so many people took an interest.

roseofthegate: I had absolutely no idea Walter was enlisted, lol. I thought he just kept getting passed over for promotions or something. Thank you so much for pointing it out.

-----------------------------------------------------

Amanda and Jacob gathered their gear together in the locker room, preparing to leave for the planet whose continuum rift had caused them to jump back in time.

"I think I've gotten the calculations precise" Jacob commented as he leaned over a bench to tie on his standard issue boots, "I pretty sure that if we catch the rift that will be caused when the planet is in it's rotational phase on the opposite side from when we caught it the first time, we'll be sent back to our time"

Amanda seemed slightly distracted as she went through an automatic mental checklist of the supplies in her pack while answering him, "The first time we caught the rift was an accident, we had no idea how far back we'd go… how do you know just how many years into the future we'll be sent?"

"Well" he muttered, finishing with his shoes and moving on to secure his weapons, "like I told Cassandra before we left, the rift sends you either back or forward in time from the planet you're dialing to, depending on how much further away from that planet it is. And its distance depends on what hour of the day it is because that's the factorial difference in its rotational phase"

Amanda never understood much of what her teammate told her when he was speaking about astrophysics, but she normally got the gist of what he was trying to tell her…if she was making an effort to listen that is.

Right now, she was too absorbed in her own thoughts to pay much attention to his explanation, and Jacob picked up on this.

"I'd give you a penny for your thoughts but I'm saving up to pay back what I bet Lif'kel on last season's games" he said.

"Huh? Oh" Amanda mumbled in response…then paused in her preparations and sighed, "I was just thinking that we didn't do much by way of getting my parents together early" she noted.

Jacob shrugged, "I'm sure they'll come around. Shifu would be making us stay if it was that important" he smirked, "I think what we were really here for was the artifact, our ascended friend just thought it'd be funny to make us suffer by forcing our folks to go all lovey-dovey on each other"

When they finished getting ready, Amanda stood in the middle of the room and placed her hands on her hips. She had a contorted expression on her face.

Jacob knew that look…he didn't like it. It was the look she got when a mission wrapped up without any problems, when Jacob was happy with the easy outcome of negotiations with other species because he hadn't had to play complicated politics, when earth got what it wanted without any complaints.

When she got that look, SG-1 had to stay behind and uncover a whole truckload of crap that had been waiting to be dumped on them anyway.

Jacob hated that look because it meant they had to work harder at getting themselves into trouble instead of just getting in, out, and on their way.

"Something else is bothering me…" she began.

Jacob groaned, "Don't start, Amanda," he pleaded.

"Well…shouldn't fixing our futures be more difficult than _this?_" she asked, waving her hand in a huge gesture that encompassed the activities of the past week or so, "I mean, all we had to do was wade through some of Shifu's vague riddles, have lunch with your parents, and find an artifact. And the outcome is supposedly going to be that our father's avoid death and we have a better life"

She said the last part in her I'm-not-buying-it tone.

Jacob muttered under his breath about a bunch of random subjects, mostly having to do with all the complications Amanda just had to cause on every other mission that did not have them experiencing doomsday.

"Fine" he said when he had finished secretly ranting, "what do you propose we do?"

----------------------------------------------------------------

Daniel and Vala sat together in the commissary, which was strangely void of other human life, probably due to the fact that when the pair had walked in together, everyone else had run out.

"People don't like you very much, do they?" Vala had stated before taking a seat.

Daniel glared at her, "Actually, people generally enjoy my company, the running and screaming only happens when I'm near you"

"Aren't you charming" she retorted.

"You tend to bring out the worst in me"

"You're sexy when you're annoyed"

"Then it's a wonder how you haven't tied me down and jumped me by now"

"The thought had crossed my mind"

Unbeknownst to the two, they were being watched by a heavy hearted Amanda Jackson at the moment, who was standing in the hallway peering through one of the entrances to the commissary.

Jacob watched his friend watch her parents and a revelation struck him, "It's not that things were too easy" he whispered to her quietly, "That's not why you're afraid we're missing something.

Amanda turned her gaze to him, and he saw the tears shimmering in her eyes. "I just had my hopes up" she muttered, "Seeing them again and having the possibility to make it so they never leave…"

She sniffed and a tear escaped down her cheek. She brushed at it but made no attempt to conceal how she was feeling, Jacob and Lif'kel had both seen her at her worst before, and she had seen them in similar states.

"I just don't want to get home and find nothing has changed because we didn't do enough…" her breathing was heavy with emotion and it yanked at his heart, "I can't go back if they aren't going to be there…I can't have them gone again…"

"Come here" Jacob said gently, pulling her into his arms and holding her as she let her tears run silently into his shoulder.

He could sympathize to some level. He had lost his father too, and longed to have him back if there was a chance. But at least he still had his mother.

Amanda was an orphan…and she was old enough when she had lost her parents to truly understand the meaning of death and pain. Jacob had only just turned eight when Jack had died, and his father was able to show up every now and then because he was ascended.

So Jacob had never truly felt the sting of loss like Amanda had. He even still had his father, albeit in an odd, apparition sort of way.

"Amanda" he said soothingly, "We wont know if it worked unless we see for ourselves"

She slowly pulled away from him and wiped at her eyes, "I know" she replied.

"We leave in five minutes" he added, glancing at his watch, trying not to sound hasty "We can call it off if you want…we'll stay if you need more time"

Amanda shook her head, "No…Cassie's probably ready to put us both on maintenance duty for a month as it is" she attempted a smile, "We should go"

-----------------------------------------------------------

The Stargate activated as the last Chevron locked into place.

Amanda and Jacob headed up the ramp part way, and then turned to say their final goodbyes.

Vala, General O'Neill, and SG-1 stood in the embarkation room to see them off.

"Th-th-th-th-th-that's all folks," Jacob stuttered, giving a two-fingered salute to his parents.

Jack rolled his eyes at the bad impression of the old cartoon character before giving a half-hearted smile, "It's been fun, kids…freaky, a little disorienting, but…fun"

Sam grinned, "Take care of yourselves"

"Yea, um…I would say don't do anything we wouldn't do but that would probably make every mission you ever went on end in various forms of disaster" Daniel commented, "So, you should definitely do the exact opposite of what we would do"

"Only risk your life if you know there's a profit in it" Vala said, winking at Amanda.

Daniel opened his mouth to respond to that, but was interrupted by Teal'c, "It was a pleasure to get to know you both" the Jaffa said, bowing lightly.

Amanda and Jacob looked at each other, "Ready?"

"No, but are we ever?"

They waved at their parents before stepping through the gate.

-----------------------------------------------

Seconds later, Amanda and Jacob were on the planet.

Jacob looked at his watched as they walked over to the DHD, "Right on schedule" he said.

Amanda tried to mentally prepare herself for the future that would be awaiting them as her friend dialed.

She crossed her fingers when the wormhole established.

Jacob took her hand and smiled reassuringly, "Let's go home, Dorothy"

-----------------------------------------------


	11. Sappiness

Cassandra was standing in the control booth next to Lif'kel and Shifu when the Stargate activated.

"Unathorized off-world activation" a nameless tech stated in a mandatory tone. "Receiving IDC"

Cassie bounced on her heels impatiently and looked over at Shifu, "Are you sure they'll remember everything when they get here?" she asked.

The man nodded, "Yes. Once they step through the gate, they will then gain the memories of everything that occurred in order to preserve their fathers' presence in this timeline"

"Then they will contain the memories of lives led without the death of their parents?" Lif'kel asked for clarification.

"Yes, but they will also still hold, as we do, the memories of their lives up to the point when they were sent back to change things" Shifu said.

"It's SG-1's Iris code, ma'am" the tech confirmed to Cassandra what she already knew.

She gave the order to open the Iris, and was relieved when the familiar forms of Jacob and Amanda walked through the distorting pool of matter.

Cassie bounded down the stairs with Lif'kel following at a more contained rate behind her.

"It's about time," the Administrator complained to the previously missing members of her flagship team.

Amanda's eyes were a bit dilated and she paused in the middle of the ramp as a slew of information assaulted her brain. Jacob froze next to her in much the same manner as new images and memories flooded his head as well.

Once the onslaught stopped, they glanced at each other with silly grins on their faces.

"We did it!" Amanda said gleefully, and threw her arms around Jacob, who nearly fell over from the sudden impact she made against his body.

She raced down the ramp and embraced Cassie and Lif'kel as well.

"They're safe" she muttered, "They're okay"

Cassandra sighed and pulled away from her younger friend, "_And _they're waiting for you at the Alpha site so can we hurry up and debrief?"

-------------------------------------------------------

Amanda's mind was still reeling with the new memories and different events that had taken place in her life once their futures had been changed, when her and her teammates arrived at the Alpha site.

Her father had managed to save Jack from getting shot on earth by using the device he had received from her and Jacob twenty-seven years ago.

She was finally told about the rogue Ancient and why her mother had to leave her the first time in order to find that same artifact and make it safe for Daniel to reclaim human form.

Now she remembered instead that Jack and Daniel had returned to the Alpha site from earth in one piece on that would've been fateful day, and Daniel used his expertise to figure out the device his future daughter had given him.

Jackson Seniormanaged to find and defeat the Ancient before he could do anything.

So Vala and Daniel and Amanda continued their family fare galactic travels and Samantha Carter stayed commander of the Alpha site, remaining there with her son and husband.

Lif'kel and Ishta still lived at Keb, and Cassandra still tugged Jacob away to the SGC where Amanda, him, and Lif'kel became SG-1.

"It's great, isn't it?" she asked Jacob as they greeted their intact family upon arriving at the Alpha site.

"A little mushy if you ask me," he grumbled, pretending to be put off by the underlying happy ending routine.

"Better than the alternative" she said, exchanging kisses and hugs with both her parents, who all seemed surprised at the particularly vigorous greeting they were receiving.

To them, there had never been another outcome, another timeline. They did remember getting a visit from their children so many years ago, and the story Amanda and Jacob had told their younger selves about a grim future, but none of them had had to actually live through those events.

--------------------------------

That night, Lif'kel, Amanda, and Jacob camped out at the Alpha site, in the wooded area a few yards away from the SGC off-world establishments where their parents were sleeping soundly.

The three of them needed to process the change of pace. The lifestyle they'd only had fifteen hours so far to acquaint themselves with and become accustomed to. So they decided to take a tent and some night gear, and sleep under the stars.

All three of them did their best thinking at night when they were away from earth. The conditions were so much more serene somehow.

Amanda also liked to chat at night, when they were on missions. Sam, Jack, and Teal'c complained that she got that habit from her father, and proceeded to recount details of endless evenings spent having to listen to Daniel ramble for hours.

Vala had a different view of her husband's want to stay awake and talk through the night. She found it comforting in a way, and liked the deeper conversations they were able to have when he was relaxed.

Jacob felt similarly when Amanda talked to him at night. He didn't find it a disturbance like his parents had with her father. He actually had a preference for it like Vala did.

"It's kind of surreal" Amanda began now with her evening discussion, "I keep expecting someone to tell me the last few hours have been a pleasant dream, but it's time to get back to reality now"

"I know" Jacob said, "It's going to take a lot of getting used to. I have an almost completely different set of memories that are playing through my head"

Lif'kel was silent, as he always was: listening and thinking, but not offering any opinion of his own.

Amanda turned on her side to face Jacob and scooted closer to him, "This may sound weird, but I'm actually looking forward to waking up tomorrow" she said, "Ever since my parents died, I haven't felt like there was any reason for me to…well, _live…_it was like I had lost most of the purpose for me existing in the universe…now I'm excited again…I'm ready to get to work and feel the awe that traveling to different places used to make me feel when I was a child…"

Jacob smiled at her excited tone, letting her enthusiastic attitude pour over him.

Amanda sighed with whimsical pleasure, "That sounds…well, like something you read in adventure romance novels" she commented, wrinkling her nose.

Jacob shook his head, "I like seeing you happy. After the childhood you went through I don't blame you for the sappiness"

She smiled in response to him, "I do kind of deserve it, don't I?" she said.

Jacob nodded his agreement.

"_Now_ how do you feel about me pushing those stones that pissed off the alien?" she asked.

"Oh, I'm still mad at you for that…making me run backwards shooting for five miles until we got to the gate"

"Quit exaggerating, it wasn't five miles"

"Was"

"Was not"

"Was"

"Was not"

"Was"

A pillow promptly hit them both in the face.

They sat up and looked at an annoyed Lif'kel.

"Oh, now you've done it" Jacob commented, "Gone and got Mister Stoic Warrior here all angry at us…now we have to retaliate" and with that, he slammed his pillow into his friend's stomach.

Before long, the current SG-1 was reduced to the state of giggling and pillow fighting.

It was an odd feeling of frivolousness that descended upon the three, antics that they hadn't felt the urge to indulge in since they were children suddenly sprung into existence.

Things were good. They're parents were alive and well. And they could appreciate the family they would always have in one another.

The End


End file.
